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A28 life
guardian.co.tt Tuesday, April 18, 2017
n From Page A27
scientists – on federal advisory boards from weigh-
ing in on scientific issues within their expertise.
These attacks are profoundly unacceptable to
many scientists and collective outrage over them
has propelled the March for Science and the Peo-
ple’s Climate March planned for the following
Saturday.
Yet something even bigger also seems to be brew-
ing. For a long time, many of us have believed that
facts speak for themselves, and scientists could
remain on the sidelines to avoid “politicising” their
work. The recent election and its aftermath have
clearly triggered a dramatic re-evaluation of these
norms. We have learned – the hard way – that we
can’t take respect for facts and science for granted
and a large and growing “fact-based” communi-
ty is rising up. This grouping includes those who
rushed to airports to protest against the ban on
Muslim immigration and the public and private
attorneys who demonstrated in court that the policy
had no facts to support it. It includes those who
have packed town hall meetings to block a repeal
of the Affordable Care Act and shown that the
replacement bill fixed no problem at all (except
perhaps the tax increases that were levied on the
rich to pay for expanded healthcare).
This fact-based community includes journal-
ists who are calling out falsehoods despite be-
ing branded enemies of the American people. It
includes political leaders from both parties who
have insisted upon a thorough investigation into
allegations of Russian influence over the election
and taken seriously the information assembled by
career intelligence officials.
What unites these disparate acts is the principle
that demonstrable facts and evidence – not fake
news, alternative facts, supposition or innuendo
– must form the backbone of public decisions. It
is what separates a democracy from a theocracy,
monarchy, or dictatorship, all forms of government
in which “the truth” is whatever the ruler says it is.
My organisation, the Union of Concerned Sci-
entists, with its more than 500,000 members and
supporters, has joined with allies from the climate,
environmental justice and labour movements to
help organise both the March for Science and the
People’s Climate March.
As the demonstrations are likely to show, an
enormous number of people understand what is
stake. The greatest attack on science in memory
may wind up spurring the greatest mobilisation
of scientists, and allies far and wide, we have ever
seen.
The greatest attack on science in
memory may wind up spurring the
greatest mobilisation of scientists